| Bill McHarg | 04 May 2015 5:26 p.m. PST |
Lately, the trend has been to sell rules in PDF form. This makes me crazy. If the rules are fairly short, like around 30 pages max, its ok. When it gets longer, it starts getting financially impractical to print them off. I don't really think that trying to reference a pdf of any length on an iPad or similar during a game is practical. Today I saw rules being sold as PDFs that were over 100 pages long. One was over 200 pages.
It also occurs to me that if you never intend to print the rules commercially, you have little incentive to edit them to any great extent. Just pile all the stuff in there and let the consumer sort it out.
I do buy PDFs occasionally. I bought Steamer Wars, and I enjoy it very much. I recently bought the follow on River Wars as well.
Just a rant. |
| Rich Bliss | 04 May 2015 5:41 p.m. PST |
I've run games with rules on a iPad. Not really any more difficult than using a bound set |
| hzcmcpheron | 04 May 2015 5:50 p.m. PST |
200 pages printed back to back @ USD$0.05 per page = USD$10 = "financially impractical to print them"? I do get your point though, the iPad is the way I do it. |
| Lucius | 04 May 2015 6:02 p.m. PST |
I never bought PDFs before I got an ipad. Now, I only buy PDFs. |
| Dynaman8789 | 04 May 2015 6:18 p.m. PST |
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 Extra Crispy  | 04 May 2015 6:20 p.m. PST |
For the games on which I offer both print and PDF, PDF outsells print roughly 3 to 1 despite a fairly modest price difference. |
| Zagloba | 04 May 2015 6:36 p.m. PST |
I think gamer shame leads to most pdf sales- no better way to read a set of rules in a waiting room without announcing to the world "I play war with little men". Rich |
| darthfozzywig | 04 May 2015 6:51 p.m. PST |
I never bought PDFs before I got an ipad.Now, I only buy PDFs. This. |
| Bill McHarg | 04 May 2015 8:40 p.m. PST |
Where do you print your rules for a nickel a page? |
| Great War Ace | 04 May 2015 9:05 p.m. PST |
How do PDFs compare with Mobi? |
| Extra Crispy | 04 May 2015 10:02 p.m. PST |
My local copy shop does B&W, double sided for 6 cents. Color is a buck a page but most PDFs include an "ink friendly" version or are low in unnecessary graphics. Never heard of "Mobi" so can't comment. |
| Porthos | 05 May 2015 3:40 a.m. PST |
"Mobi" is the extension for Kindle e-readers (sold by Amazon). If you want to change PDF in mobi just use the – free downloadable – Calibre. However be careful about large pdf-files. I prefer not to try to change 60MB pdf-files !
Calibre: calibre-ebook.com |
| parrskool | 05 May 2015 6:07 a.m. PST |
I detest pdf rules. Hard copy any day! |
| The Beast Rampant | 05 May 2015 9:52 a.m. PST |
For the games on which I offer both print and PDF, PDF outsells print roughly 3 to 1 despite a fairly modest price difference. Got to factor in shipping costs, too. |
| Cacique Caribe | 05 May 2015 2:06 p.m. PST |
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| raylev3 | 05 May 2015 2:29 p.m. PST |
The ease of creating PDF rules leads to a lot of unnecessary rules muddying up the market place. Of course I'm talking about those that are not first published, and then later, after they're proven themselves become available as PDF. Otherwise it's difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. |
| Stryderg | 05 May 2015 2:58 p.m. PST |
Buy the pdf, print only the pages I need. |
| tberry7403 | 05 May 2015 2:59 p.m. PST |
The ease of creating PDF rules leads to a lot of unnecessary rules muddying up the market place. That's like saying the availability of self-publishing (or for that matter the printing press) leads to a lot of unnecessary books being published. |
| Meiczyslaw | 05 May 2015 9:00 p.m. PST |
The thing to remember is that a PDF is an electronic document. Not all publishers recognize that, and don't properly leverage that. I like to think that I do: my rules have a functioning outline* that'll let you jump around in the PDF; and my cross-references are hot-linked. At that point, it's faster to use the iPad than it is to flip physical pages, and my rules are only 89 pages (44 of which are the core rules). *If you don't know what I'm talking about, poke your PDF reader so that it displays it for you. |
| Muerto | 06 May 2015 9:47 a.m. PST |
While I fear the OP was motivated by curmudgeonly resistance to change, I agree on one aspect – length, especially when self-publishing equals self-indulgence. There is one popular set of rules I've been itching to moan about ever since I printed it out. It's over 130 pages, when, even keeping illustrative examples in, it could be cut to under 100 if the author didn't love repeatedly mentioning what periods he plays, his gaming mates, what they play, what their nicknames are, how he always defeats them, giving quotations from military geniuses including himself, and so on. The author has stated that professional publishing is "bull  " (including editing, I surmise) and that he doesn't want someone else's ego stamped on his work. Fair enough – there's hardly any room for any more. By all account good rules, once you wade through the prolix. |
 optional field  | 08 May 2015 11:00 a.m. PST |
The ease of creating PDF rules leads to a lot of unnecessary rules muddying up the market place.
You clearly have not read some of the more unfortunate printed rules I own (from before the era of PDFs). |
